Chapter Two.
Face to Face
“And with such words – a lie! – a lie!
She broke my heart and flung it by.”
In the early days of August, after as long a delay as she could find excuse for, Ruth Seyton returned to Elderthwaite, knowing that Rupert was to come next week to Oakby for the grouse shooting, and that Cheriton was ready to claim her promise; for as she came on the very day of her arrival to a garden-party at Mrs Ellesmere’s, she held in her pocket a letter written in defiance of her prohibition, urging her to let him speak to her again, and full of love and longing for her presence.
She knew that Rupert was coming, for the quarrel between them was at an end. Ruth had been very dull and desolate during her quiet visit to some old friends of her mother’s, very much shocked at hearing from Virginia of Cherry’s illness, and more self-reproachful for having let him linger in the damp shrubberies by her side than for the greater injury she had done him.
She wrote on the spur of the moment, and sent Alvar a kind message of sympathy; but every day her promise to Cheriton seemed more unreal, and when at last Rupert came, ashamed of the foolish dispute, and only wanting to laugh at and forget it, she yielded to his first word, and, though a little hurt to find how lightly he could regard a lover’s quarrel, was too happy to forgive and be forgiven. But one thing she knew that he would not have forgiven, and that was her reception of Cheriton’s offer, and though it had never entered into her theories of life to deceive the real lover, she let it pass unconfessed – nay, let Rupert suppose, though she did not put it in words, that she had discovered “Cheriton’s folly” in time to put it aside.
That she must shortly meet them both, and in each other’s presence, was the one thought in her mind, even while she heard from Virginia that Cherry was almost well again, and detected a touch of chagrin in her eager account of Alvar’s clever and constant care. “No, she had not seen him yesterday, but they would all meet to-day.”
Still it was startling, when the two girls came out into the garden of the rectory, to see in the sunshine Cheriton Lester with a mallet in his hand, looking tall and delicate, but with a face of eager greeting turned full on her own.
In another moment he held her hand in a close, tight grasp, as she dropped her eyes and hoped that he was better.
“Quite well now,” said Cheriton, in a tone that Ruth fancied every one must interpret truly.
“That is, when he obeys orders,” said another voice; and Ruth felt her heart stand still, for Rupert came up to Cheriton’s side and held out his hand to her.
For the first time in her life she was sorry to see him. She could have screamed with the surprise, and her face betrayed an agitation that made Cheriton’s heart leap, as he attributed it to her meeting with him after his dangerous illness.
“I am quite well,” he repeated. “I am not going to give any more trouble, I hope, now.”
Rupert looked unusually full of spirits. “Good news,” he whispered to Ruth, with a smile of triumph. She could hardly smile back at him. Alvar now came up and spoke to them. He looked very grave; as Ruth fancied, reproachful.
Some one asked Ruth to play croquet, and she declined; then felt as if the game would have been a refuge. But she took what seemed the lesser risk, and walked away with Rupert; and Cheriton tried in vain for the opportunity of a word with her – she eluded him, he hardly knew how. The sense of suspicion and suspense which had been growing all through the later weeks of his recovery was coming to a point.
Ruth seemed like a mocking fairy, like some unreliable vision, as he saw her smiling and gracious – nay, answered occasional remarks from her – but could never meet her eyes, nor obtain from her one real response.
These perpetual, impalpable rebuffs raised such a tumult in Cheriton’s mind that he restrained himself with a forcible effort from some desperate measure which should oblige her to listen to him, while all his native reticence and pride could hardly afford him self-control enough to play his part without discovery.
An equal sense of baffled discomfort pressed on Virginia. She had very seldom seen a cloud on Alvar’s brow; he never committed such an act of discourtesy as to be out of temper in her presence; but to-day he looked so stern as to prompt her to say, timidly, “Has anything vexed you, Alvar?”
“How could I be vexed when you are here, queen of my heart?” said Alvar, turning to her with a smile. “See, will you come to get some strawberries – it is hot?”
“I would rather you told me when things trouble you,” said Virginia.
“It is not for you, mi doña, to hear of things that are troubling,” said Alvar, still rather abstractedly.
“Are you still anxious about Cherry?” she persisted.
“Ay de mi, yes; I am anxious about him,” said Alvar, sharply; then changing, “but I am ungallant to show you my anxiety. That is not for you.”
“Ah, how you misunderstand what I want!” she cried. “If I only knew what you feel, if you would talk to me about yourself! But it is like giving an Eastern lady fine dresses and sugar-plums.”
The gentle Virginia was angry and agitated. All through Cheriton’s illness she had felt herself kept at a distance by Alvar, known herself unable to comfort him, had suffered pangs that were like enough to jealousy, to intensify themselves by self-reproach. Yet she gloried in Alvar’s devotion to his brother, in his skill and tenderness. Alvar did not perceive what she wanted, and, moreover, was of course unable to tell her the present cause of his annoyance, at the existence of which he did not wish her to guess.
“See now,” he said, taking her hands and kissing them, “how I am discourteous; I am sulky, and I let you see it. Forgive me, forgive me, it shall be so no more. You shed tears; ah, my queen, they reproach me!”
Virginia yielded to his caresses and his kindness, and blamed herself. Some day, perhaps, in a quieter moment, she could show him that she wanted to share his troubles and not be protected from them. In the meantime his presence was almost enough.
Alvar, like some others of his name, was a person of slow perceptions, and was apt to be absorbed in one idea at a time. He did not guess that while he paid Virginia all the courtesy that he thought her due she longed for a far closer union of spirits. He was proud of being Cheriton’s chief dependence during the tedious recovery that none of the others could bear to think incomplete, and to find that his tact and consideration made him a welcome companion when Jack’s ponderous discussions were too great a fatigue. But he would not endure thanks, and after the outburst with which he had received his father’s nobody proffered them. Not one of the others, full of anger with Ruth and of anxiety for Cheriton, could have abstained from fretting him with one word on the subject, as Alvar did all that afternoon and evening. But his mind was free to think of nothing else.
As for Ruth, the moment that should have been full of unalloyed bliss for her, the moment when Rupert told her that concealment was no longer necessary, was distracted by the terror of discovery.
Rupert had to tell her that the sale of a farm, effected on unusually advantageous terms, had made the declaration of his wishes possible to him, and he was now ready to present himself before her guardians and ask their consent to a regular engagement. Ruth was about to go back to her grandmother, and all might now be well. Ruth did not know how to be glad; she could not tell how deeply the Lesters might blame her. Her one hope was in Cheriton’s generosity, and to him at least she must tell the whole truth.
“To-morrow I shall come and see you,” he said gravely, as he wished her good-night, and she managed to give him an assenting glance, but he knew that she was treating him ill, and tormented himself with a thousand fancies – that his illness had changed him, that something during their separation had changed her. He said nothing, but the next day started alone for Elderthwaite.
It was a bright morning, with a clear blue sky. Cheriton passed into the wood and through the flickering shadows of the larches. He did not spend the time of his walk in forming any plans as to how he should meet Ruth; he set his mind on the one fact that a meeting was certain. But perhaps the brightness of the morning influenced his mood, for as he came out on to the bit of bare hill-side that divided the wood from the Elderthwaite property, a certain happiness of anticipation possessed him – circumstances might account for the discomfort of the preceding day, Ruth’s eyes might once more meet his own, her voice once more tell him that she loved him.
The bit of fell was divided from Mr Seyton’s plantation by a low stone wall, mossy, and overgrown with clumps of harebells and parsley fern, and half smothered by the tall brackens and brambles that grew on either side of it. Beyond were a few stunted, ill-grown oak-trees, with a wild undergrowth of hazel.
As Cheriton came across the soft, smooth turf of the hill-side, he became aware that some one was sitting on the wall beside the wide gap that led into the plantation, and he quickened his steps with a thrill of hope as he recognised Ruth. She stood up as he approached and waited for him, as he exclaimed eagerly, —
“This is too good of you!”
“Oh, no!” said Ruth, and began to cry.
Her eyes were red already, and with her curly hair less deftly arranged than usual, and her little black hat pushed back from her face, she had an air indescribably childish and forlorn.
Every thought of resentment passed from Cheriton’s mind, he was by her side in a moment, entreating to be told of her trouble, and in his presence the telling of her story was so dreadful to her that perhaps nothing but the knowledge of Rupert’s neighbourhood could have induced her to do it. Ruth hated to be in disgrace, and genuine as were her tears, she was not without a thought of prepossessing him in her favour. But she could not run the risk of Rupert’s suddenly coming through the fir-wood.
“Please come this way,” she said, breaking from him and skirting along inside the wall till they were out of sight of the pathway. Then she began, averting her face and plucking at the fern-leaves in the wall.
“I – I don’t know how to tell you, but you are so good and kind and generous, so much —much better than I am – you won’t be hard on me.”
“It doesn’t take much goodness to make me feel for your trouble,” said Cheriton, tenderly. “Tell me, my love, and see if I am hard.”
“Every one is hard on a girl who has been as foolish as I have.”
Cheriton began to think that she was going to tell him of some undue encouragement given to some other lover in his absence or before her promise to him, and to believe that here was the explanation of all that had perplexed him.
“I shall never be offended when you tell me that I have no cause for offence,” he said, putting his hand down on hers as she fingered the fern-leaves.
“Indeed, I would not have deceived you so long, but for your illness,” said Ruth, a little more firmly.
“Deceived me! Dearest, don’t use such hard words of yourself. Tell me what all this means. What fancy is this?”
“Will you promise – promise me to be generous and to forgive me? Oh, you may ruin all my life if you will,” said Ruth, passionately.
“I ruin your life! ah, you little know! When my life was given back to me, I was glad because it belonged to you,” said Cheriton, faltering in his earnestness.
“Then oh! Cherry, Cherry,” cried Ruth, suddenly turning on him and clasping her hands, “then give me back my foolish promise – forget it altogether – let us be friends as we were when I was a little girl. Oh, Cherry, forgive me – I cannot – cannot do it!”
“What can you mean?” said Cheriton, slowly, and with so little evidence of surprise that Ruth took courage to go on.
“Cherry!” she repeated, as if clinging to the name that marked her old relation to him; “Cherry, a long time ago – last spring, I was engaged to some one else – to your cousin; but it suited him – us – to say nothing of it at first. And oh! I was jealous and foolish, and we quarrelled, and I was in a passion, and thought to show him I didn’t care. And you came that day at Milford, and I knew how good you were, and you begged so hard I couldn’t resist you – you gave me no time. And then very soon he came back, and I knew I had made a mistake. I would have told you at once, indeed I would, but for your illness. How could I then?”
Cheriton stood looking at her, and while she spoke, his astonished gaze grew stern and piercing, till she shrank from him and turned away. Then he said, with a sort of incredulous amazement, with which rising anger contended, —
“Then you never meant what you said? When you told me that you loved me, it was false – you did not mean to give yourself to me? You kissed me to deceive me?”
“Oh, Cheriton!” sobbed Ruth, covering her face, “don’t – don’t put it like that. I was very – very foolish – very wicked, but it was not all plain in that way. Won’t you forgive me? I was so very unhappy! I thought you were always kind – ”
“Kind!” ejaculated Cheriton. “There is only one way of putting it! Which is your lover, to which of us are you promised, to Rupert or to me?”
Anger, scorn, and a pain as yet hardly felt, intensified Cheriton’s accent. She had expected him to plead for himself, to bemoan his loss, and instead she shrank and quailed before his judgment of her deceit. His last words awoke a spark of defiance, and suddenly, desperately, she faced him and said, clearly, —
“To Rupert.”
Cheriton put his hand back and leant against the wall. He was beginning to feel the force of the blow. After a moment he raised his head, and looked at her again, with a face now pale and mournful.
“Oh, Ruth, is it indeed so? Have I nothing to hope – nothing even to remember? Did you never mean it – never?”
“I was so angry – so miserable that I was mad,” faltered Ruth. “I thought he was false to me.”
“So you took me in to make up for it?” said Cheriton roughly, his indignation again gaining ground. “Well, I should thank you for at last undeceiving me!”
He turned as if to go; but Ruth sobbed out, “I know it was very wrong, indeed I am sorry for you. I can never, never be happy, if you don’t forgive me.”
“What can you mean by forgiving?” said Cheriton bitterly. “I wish I had died before I knew this! You have deceived me and made a fool of me, while I thought you – I thought you – ”
“Then,” cried Ruth, stung by the change of feeling his words implied, “you can tell them all about it if you will, and ruin me!”
“What!” exclaimed Cheriton, starting upright. “Is that what you can think possible? Is that why you are crying? You may be perfectly happy! The promise you had the prudence to exact has been unbroken. No! when I thought that I was dying, I told Alvar that you might be spared any shock. Neither he nor I are likely to speak of it further. I had better wish you good-morning.”
It was Cheriton whose love had been scorned, whose hopes had all been dashed to the ground in the last half-hour, and who had received a blow that had changed the world for him; but it had come in such a form that the injured self-respect struggled for self-preservation. The first effect on his clear, upright nature was incredulous anger, a sense of resistance, of shame and scorn, that, all-contending and half-suppressed, made him terrible to Ruth, whose self-deceit had expected quite another reception of her words. She had shrunk from the idea of giving him pain, had dreaded the confession of her own misdeeds; but she had indemnified her conscience to herself for ill-treating Cheriton by a sort of unnatural and unreal admiration of what she called his goodness; which seemed to her to render self-abnegation natural, if not easy, to him.
She, with her passionate feelings, her warm heart, might be forgiven for error; but he, since he was high-principled and religious, would surely make it easier for her, would stand in an ideal relation to her and tell her that “her happiness was dearer than his own.”
“Good” people were capable of that sort of self-sacrificing devotion. She thought, as many do, that Cheriton’s battle was less hard to fight, because he had hitherto had the strength to win it. Poor boy, it had come to the forlorn hope now! He only knew that he must not turn and fly.
As Ruth looked up at him all tear-stained and deprecatory, his mood changed.
“Oh, Ruth, Ruth – Ruth!” he cried, as he turned away, “and I loved you so!”
But he left her without a touch of the hand; without a parting, without a pardon. No other relations could replace for him those she had destroyed. Ruth watched him hurry across the fell and into the fir-wood, and then, as she sank down among the ferns and gave way to a final burst of misery, she thought to herself, “Oh, Rupert, Rupert, what I have endured for your sake!”
Chapter Three.
In the Thick of the Fight
“Oh, that ’twere I had been false – not she!”
In the meantime the unconscious Rupert was strolling up and down in front of the house waiting for his uncle to come out, and intending to take him into his confidence and ask for his good offices with Ruth’s guardians. It was well for her that he had no suspicion of what was passing; for little as she guessed it, he would have greatly resented her treachery towards Cheriton as well as towards himself. But Rupert was in high spirits, and when Mr Lester joined him, he told his tale with the best grace that he could. His uncle was pleased with the news, and questioned him pretty closely upon all its details, shook his head over the previous difficulties which Rupert admitted, told him that he was quite right to be open with him, congratulated him when he owned to having met with success with the lady herself, and, pleased with being consulted, threw himself heart and soul into the matter.
As they came up towards the back of the house, they met Alvar, who, rather hastily, asked if they had seen Cheriton.
“He went to take a walk. I am afraid he will be tired,” he explained.
“Eh, Alvar, you’re too fidgety,” said his father good-humouredly. “There’s Cheriton, looking at the puppies.”
Alvar looked, and beheld a group gathered in the doorway of a great barn, the figures standing out clear in the sunshine against the dark shadow behind. Nettie was standing in the centre with her arms apparently full of whining little puppies; the mother, a handsome retriever, was yelping and whining near. Buffer was barking and dancing in a state of frantic jealousy beside her. Bob and Jack were disputing over the merits of the puppies. Dick Seyton, with a cigar in his mouth, was leaning lazily against the barn door, while Cheriton, looking, to Alvar’s anxious eyes, startlingly pale, was standing near.
“But say, Cherry, say,” urged Nettie, “which of them are to be kept? Don’t you think this is the best of all?”
“That,” interrupted Bob, “that one will never be worth anything. Look, Cherry, this one’s head – ”
“Bob, what are you about here at this time in the morning?” said his father. “I told you I must have some work done these holidays. Be off with you at once.”
“Cherry said yesterday he would come and help me,” growled Bob.
“I want him,” said Mr Lester. “Got a piece of news for you, Cherry. No secret, Rupert, I suppose?”
“I’ll tell Cherry presently,” said Rupert, thinking the audience large and embarrassing.
Cheriton started, and the unseeing look went out of his eyes, and for one moment he looked at Rupert as if he could have knocked him down. Then the reflection of his own look on Alvar’s face brought back the instinct of concealment, the self-respect that held its own, while all their voices sounded strange and confused, and he could not tell how often his father had spoken to him or how long ago.
“I think I can guess your news,” he said. “But I must go in. Come back to the house with me, Rupert.”
He spoke rather slowly, but much in his usual manner. Rupert was aware that the news might not be altogether pleasant to him; but he had the tact to turn away with him at once; while Alvar watched them in utter surprise, the wildest surmises floating through his mind. But what Cherry wanted was to hear whether Rupert would confirm what Ruth had told him; somehow he could not feel sure if it were true.
“How long have you been engaged?” he said; “that was what you were going to tell me, wasn’t it?”
“My uncle is frightfully indiscreet,” said Rupert, with a conscious laugh. “Nothing has been settled yet with the authorities; but we have understood each other for some time. She – she’s one in a thousand, and I don’t deserve my luck.”
Rupert was very nervous; he had always thought that Cheriton had a boyish fancy for Ruth, though he was far from imagining its extent, and he was divided between a sense of triumph over him and a most real desire not to let the triumph be apparent, or to give him unnecessary pain. Being successful, he could afford to be generous, and talked on fast lest Cherry should say something for which he might afterwards be sorry.
“I suppose we haven’t kept our secret so well as we thought,” he said, laughing, “as you guessed it so quickly. All last spring I was afraid of Alvar’s observations.”
“Did Alvar know? He might have – he might – ?” Cheriton stopped abruptly, conscious only of passion hitherto unknown. He never marvelled afterwards at tales of sudden wild revenge. In that first hour of bitter wrong he could have killed Rupert, had a weapon been in his hand, have challenged him to a deadly duel, had such a thought been instinctive to his generation. Rupert did not look at him, or the wrath in his eyes must have betrayed him. He longed to revenge himself, to tell Rupert all; even his sense of honour shook and faltered in the storm. “She promised me! She kissed me!” The words seemed to sound in his ears, something within held them back from his lips. Another moment, and Alvar touched his arm.
“Come in, Cherito, the wind is cold,” he said. “Come in with me.”
Rupert, glad to close the interview, little as he guessed how it might have ended, turned away, saying, with a half-laugh, “I must go and check Uncle Gerrald’s communications; they are too premature.”
Then Cheriton felt himself tremble from head to foot; he knew that Alvar was talking, uttering words of vehement sympathy, but he could not tell what they were.
“You came in time – you came in time to save me!” said Cheriton wildly, as his senses began to recover their balance. He turned away his face for a few moments, then spoke collectedly.
“Thank you. That is all over now! You see I’m not strong yet. You will not see me like this again. The one thing is to prevent any one from guessing, above all my father.”
“But, my brother, how can you – you cannot conceal from all that you suffer?” said Alvar, dismayed.
“Cannot I? I will,” said Cheriton, with his mouth set, while his hands still trembled.
“Why? You have done no wrong,” said Alvar. “Are you the first who has been deceived by a faithless woman? She is but a woman, my brother; there are others. You feel now that you could stab your rival to revenge yourself. Ah, that will pass; she’s only a woman. Heavens! I tore my hair. I wept. I told all my friends of my despair; it was the sooner over. You will find others.”
“We usually keep our disappointments to ourselves,” said Cheriton coldly. “I could not forgive any betrayal. Now I’ll go in by myself. I’ll come down to lunch. As you say, I’m not the first fellow who has been made a fool of.”
“What will he do?” thought Alvar as he reluctantly left him. “He would forgive his rival sooner than himself. They pretend to feel nothing, my brothers, that gives them much trouble. If I were to tell a falsehood to please them, they would despise me; but Cherito will tell many falsehoods to hide that he grieves.”
Cheriton gathered himself up enough to hide his rage and grief, hardly enough in any way to struggle with them, and the suffering was as uncontrollable and as exhausting as the pain and fever of his late illness. It shut out even more completely the remembrance of anything but his own sensations. And it was all so bitter – he felt the injury so keenly – he had not yet power to feel the loss. He kept up well, however, and during the next two or three days his father saw nothing amiss; while Alvar, though anxious about his health, regarded the misery as a phase that must have its way. But Nettie declared that Cherry was cross, and Jack, who had lately acquired the habit of noticing him, felt that he was not himself. It was difficult to define; but it seemed to him as if his brother never looked, spoke or acted exactly as might have been expected. Things seemed to pass him by.
The twelfth of August proving hopelessly wet and wild, even Mr Lester could not think his joining the shooting party allowable, and Cheriton expressed a proper amount of disappointment; but Jack recollected that when they had all been speculating on the weather the night before, Cherry had hardly turned his head to look at it. He would not let Alvar stay at home with him, and felt glad to be free from observation.
In the meantime matters had not gone much more pleasantly at Elderthwaite. Ruth was in such dread of discovery that even in Rupert’s presence she could not be at ease. Her conscience reproached her, and she was by no means sure that Rupert was quite unsuspicious, for he talked a good deal about his cousin, and once said that he thought him much changed by his illness. Neither was she happy with Virginia, towards whom a certain amount of confidence was necessary, as she could not lead her to suppose that all had been freshly settled with Rupert; and Virginia, who was usually reticent and shy, questioned her closely as to Rupert’s behaviour and modes of action. Indeed she marvelled at her cousin’s ignorance, for Alvar seemed to her to imply displeasure in every look. He came seldom to Elderthwaite, and, when there, scarcely spoke of Cherry. Ruth could only hurry her return to her grandmother, which was to take place in a few days; but an Oakby dinner-party, in honour of the engagement, could not be avoided. Ruth dared not have a head-ache or a cold, and in a tremor most unlike her usual self she prepared to meet her two lovers face to face. If Cheriton had any mercy for her, or any feeling for himself, he would avoid her. How little she had once thought ever to be afraid of Cherry! But he was there, with a flower in his coat, and plenty of conversation, apparently on very good terms with Rupert, and facing the greeting with entire composure. He even ate his dinner; he sat, not opposite Ruth, but low down on the other side of the table, while she had Alvar for her neighbour – a very silent one, as Virginia, on his other side, remarked with a sigh. It would have been natural for her to talk to Rupert, who sat on the other side of her, but she felt Cheriton’s eyes on her in all their peculiar intenseness of expression. Ruth was very sensitive, and they seemed to mesmerise her; she grew absolutely pale, and she knew that Rupert saw it. How could Cheriton be so cruel!
Her white face and drooping lip flashed the same thought to Cheriton himself. What a coward he was thus to revenge himself! He turned his head away with a sudden rush of softening feeling. Disappointed love and jealousy had, she told him, driven her mad – what were they making of him? At least it was more manly to let her alone.
“Cheriton, I want a word with you,” said Rupert, turning into the smoking-room when the party was over. “Of course, you have a right to refuse to answer me, but – I can’t but observe your manner. Do you consider yourself in any way aggrieved by my engagement?”
It did not occur to Cheriton that, if Rupert had had full trust in Ruth, he would never have put such a question. He was conscious of such unusual feelings that he knew not how far he stood self-betrayed in manner. Rupert was his cousin, almost as intimate as a brother, and he could not resent the question quite as if it had come from a stranger. It could have been answered by a short negative, leaving the sting that had prompted it where it had been before. Full of passion and resentment as Cheriton still was, he could not now have broken his word and deliberately betrayed the girl who had betrayed him.
He was silent for a minute; still another part was open. At last he looked up at Rupert and said, —
“I made her an offer – she has refused me. Don’t mind my way – there’s an end of it.”
“Cherry, you’re a good fellow, a real good fellow – thank you!” said Rupert warmly. “I’m sorry, with all my heart.”
“Don’t think about me,” repeated Cheriton rather stiffly. “But I’ll say good-night.”
He was so obviously putting a great force on himself that Rupert, feeling that he could not be the one to offer sympathy, would not detain him; but as he gave his hand a hearty squeeze, Cherry, with another great effort, said, —
“I do wish her – happiness,” then turned away and hurried upstairs.